Students in almost every grade and demographic performed slightly better on their state assessments this year, according to data released today by the Connecticut State Department of Education.

In most cases, the improvement was small — less than 1% — and almost all groups still performed worse than before the pandemic. Nevertheless, CSDE officials celebrated the positive momentum, which comes as declining test scores dominate headlines across the U.S.

And while the state averages remain below their 2019 levels, several individual school districts have surpassed their pre-COVID scores in at least one subject.

“It gives us confidence that we’re rowing in the right direction,” said CSDE Chief Performance Officer Ajit Gopalakrishnan.

The department also announced a decline in absentee rates among high-needs students for the fourth consecutive year, in line with a reduction in the state’s overall absentee rate.

Norwalk interim Superintendent Sandra Faioes attributed the fact that test scores remain below pre-pandemic levels to the challenges Connecticut families have faced in the years since 2020.

“I don’t think that families really have come out of where they were in terms of the conditions that they’re living in,” Faioes said. Getting students back into school, she added, remains an ongoing challenge — though her district outperformed the state this year in reducing chronic absenteeism.

Somers Superintendent Sam Galloway, whose district has surpassed its pre-COVID test scores, attributed the success in part to the district limiting screen time for students.

“This year, we put in a curfew on our Chromebooks for our middle school level and our high school kids, because they don’t need to be up all night doing whatever,” Galloway said.

Big demographic gaps persist

The state’s target score in each category for all ages and demographics is 75. The only group to meet or exceed that benchmark was Asian students, who scored above 75 in all three categories (reading, math and science).

Black students scored an average of 48.7 in math. White students scored 69.9, a difference of over 21 points. Hispanic or Latino students also scored comparatively lower, averaging 51.3.

The pattern was similar in reading and science.

High-needs students — defined as those receiving free or reduced price meals, English language learners and students with disabilities — also performed about 10 points below the overall student body in each category.

The results are likely to reaffirm decades-old concerns that Connecticut does not fund its public schools equitably, with more money on average going to wealthier — and often whiter — communities than poorer ones. A recent study also found the state is among the most segregated in the U.S., with an unusual propensity for packing low-income students together, separating them from their more affluent peers.

Education leaders have cited widespread voter opposition to regionalization as a key obstacle to changing that.

Gov. Ned Lamont convened a Blue-Ribbon Commission earlier this year to investigate the state’s funding system and devise something better. Advocates hope — with varying degrees of optimism — that the result will help close the gaping disparities in how different demographic groups perform.

Grade 11 didn’t do as well, but there’s a catch

Students in 11th grade bucked the positive trend in other classes, moving from an average English Language Arts (ELA) score of 54.7 in 2025 to 54.3 in 2026. That’s not just a decline — it’s also one of the worst ELA scores of any grade and demographic.

By contrast, their math scores saw a slight uptick from 50.1 to 50.3 — though that’s still well below all other grades.

Faioes said it’s difficult to draw many conclusions from that.

“You can’t compare … just this year’s 11th grade to last year’s 11th grade, because they’re two different groups of students. So in terms of growth … they made greater growth even than last year,” Faioes said.

Gopalakrishnan of CSDE said, “If you just look at grade 11, one year to the next, it’s a different set of kids.” That’s not the case for grades three to eight, where the majority of kids remain in that age range from one year to the next.

In other words: It’s more meaningful to compare the 2025 and 2026 results for grades three to eight than it is for grade 11.

(There is no assessment data for grades nine and 10.)

Gopalakrishnan said the pandemic may also have hit 2026’s 11th graders especially hard.

“Seven years ago, they were … entering into middle school, critical concepts,” Gopalakrishnan said. “So those impacts sometimes linger, and so different cohorts tend to behave a little differently.”

Students with disabilities improved more

Students with disabilities were one of only two groups — the other being Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander — to improve both their average math and reading scores by more than 1%. Their ELA scores went from 45.8 in 2025 to 47.1 in 2026; in math, scores went from 40.9 in 2025 to 42.4 in 2026. 

That math score is also better than what students with disabilities scored in 2019 (41.7). The only other group to outperform their 2019 score in any category was white students, also in math (69.6 in 2019, 69.9 in 2026).

The gap between students with disabilities and the general student body also shrank by about one point in both reading and math, though it remains high. The reading gap is 17.9 and the math gap is 19.3. Critics have said the size of the gap stems in large part from Connecticut’s lack of investment in special education, which is meant to reduce those disparities as much as possible.